In my opinion, I feel like 90% of society has seen Catfish the TV show or knows what the term means. If you haven’t, a Catfish is someone who sets up a fake dating profile online to trick people looking for love or a hookup. They pass themselves off as someone they aren’t, usually for the motivation of money or getting something from the other person who is pursuing them. We got to interview somebody who has been catfishing since 2002 and still does it to this day. They started doing it on phone chat lines then eventually moved to the internet. Catfishing for 20 years is a long fucking time. Why have they done it for so long? How have they done it for so long successfully? We found out the why, how, all of that, and a whole lot more while talking to them.
Mick: Tell me about your childhood and where the issues that led you to make these decisions, like creating fake dating profiles and making it a point to try to hook up with straight guys, come from.
Kelly: Well, hi Mick you can call me Kelly because I don’t want people to know my actual name I use on my profiles. My self-esteem is low. That comes from my looks, my upbringing, and it is low for a lot of reasons. My childhood was horrible in many respects. I was in and out of the hospital. My dad was a piece of shit who only stayed with me in the hospital because he was fucking the boy’s mother who was laying in the hospital bed next to me. My dad even hooked up with my babysitter who lived across the street.
On a side note, later in life he reached out to me in 2003 and said he accepted me. I told him I would not forgive him because of my traumatic childhood and all that he done to me and my mother. After I told him that, he called me several homophobic slurs and said fuck you. That was that.
Mick: From what I’ve gotten from talking to you, posing as a woman to try to hook up with straight guys was a thing for you even before internet dating sites came around and all of that. When and why did you start doing this?
Kelly: It started in 2001–2002, when I was in a long-term relationship. I was always in the house and taking care of me and my partner’s dog while he was out at the bar cheating on me. I caught him when I ventured out and found him at a gay bar in downtown Pittsburgh. He was cheating on me with another guy. I later found out he was sneaking into yet another guy’s office and fucking around with that guy who would later turn out to be a good friend to me down the road.
After that, all bets were off. I called up the Lava Life chat line and started chatting with guys as a woman. I had a feminine voice, so I got a lot of messages and was able to pass myself off as a woman easily. It gave me the attention and satisfaction I was missing from my partner and in my own relationship. Just off Lava Life chat line, I probably hooked up with 50 guys total. I didn’t discriminate either. I hooked up with a lot of black, white, Asian, and Indian guys. I still use that chat line and get about 30 messages a week.
But, the point is, it became a thing for me to see how many straight guys I could hook up with after that. Another thing I started doing was taking Polaroids of all the guys I hooked up with.
Mick: Did you pursue guys in public, in the street, or who lived around you? As yourself?
Kelly: Hell yeah all the time!! There were so many opportunities living in Lawrenceville. There was a guy who was shoveling the streets in the winter. I invited him in to my house and he was already drunk. We started kissing, he let me take pictures of him, we blew each other, and then he asked me if I could fuck him. That was how easy it was.
Another time there was a construction site near my house. Day after day, I would fantasize about and make small talk with all the construction workers. After a while, one spotted me by the door looking out and asked if I’d mind if he used my bathroom. When he came back down I already had straight porn playing so instead of getting back out there he sat down to watch, and he started masturbating. I asked if I could take a pic of his body because it was just so damn beautiful. He didn’t object, and I even ended up blowing him too.
The youngest I met on the street was a 21-year-old trucker when I was walking my dog standing outside his truck. After talking to him for a while I said if you get too bored and want to have a beer feel free to stop up. I gave him my address. 20 min later the guy stopped up and I got to blow him.
All these guys claimed they were straight until I got to them!
Mick: That’s truly wild as hell you could turn them out like that. So, let’s talk about setting up these profiles on these sites and all of that. How does it work? How do you do it? Break that shit down for me.
Kelly: The main site I use is Adultfriendfinder. I post on there with my real profile, who is genuinely me. My other profile I can’t say because I still use it today and don’t want people connecting me with it or what I do. I present on that profile as a woman. I put in the description about how me and my girlfriend are looking for a third.
I’ve hooked up with at least 40 men from this Adultfriendfinder alone.
Mick: Who do you encounter on Adultfriendfinder? More males, women, or what?
Kelly: 90% men on Adultfriendfinder and 10% women.
Mick: What about the percentage of men do you hook up with? What do they consider themselves?
Kelly: Well, I would say 50% bi, 50% straight.
Mick: Do you catch these guys in lies when they interact with both profiles?
Kelly: Well, last Labor Day a one timer from 3 or 4 months ago messaged the fake profile and asked about the “Kelly”, who is in New York City for a couple months. He then asked about the guy, and he messaged him after asking for his number. He wanted to come over or pick up “Kelly”. He says he is openly bi; he has done everything with a guy, yet he told the fake profile he has never been into that.
Mick: Do guys say off the wall shit to you when they get comfortable?
Kelly: Some guys I sleep with who are white say to me “I can’t believe you slept with black men.” It’s fucked up.
One guy was tense and when I started sucking his dick he asked what I was doing. Then 5 minutes later he said “I’m gonna cum”, and then said, “Oh shit, I can’t believe I just did that.” Like this wild range of emotions all in just a couple of moments. That happens frequently, this shock feeling.
Part 2 of our interview with “Kelly” will be coming out next week. In Part 2, we will dive deeper into the what happens when these supposedly straight men come over and find out “Kelly” isn’t who they say they are along with a whole lot more.
